


You can't choose what stays (and what fades away)

by holograms



Series: Every Second Injures [2]
Category: Whiplash (2014)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Amount of Awfulness, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Shared Dreams, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 08:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4130929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holograms/pseuds/holograms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He should have realized that his Soulmate and his Charlie Parker would be exclusive, one and the same.</p><p>[Fletcher's side to the Soulmate AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	You can't choose what stays (and what fades away)

**Author's Note:**

> So, here is the Fletcher POV of the Soulmate AU. Reading Andrew's side first isn't necessary I guess, but it would probably fill in some gaps in the story and have it make more sense. Again, I promise you it isn't as schmoopy as the AU category suggests.
> 
> An alternative title to this is: Fletcher Finds Out This Dumb Kid is His Soulmate and Has a Temper Tantrum About It. Actual title is from the song "No Light, No Light" by Florence + the Machine.
> 
> Still not over Whiplash? Come talk to me on [tumblr.](http://acanofpeaches.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Extra content notes in the end notes.

i.

Terence cannot remember a time when he didn’t know that his parents are Soulmates — it’s something that just _is_.

But it isn’t until he’s six that he understands what that label for another person actually _means_ and the weighty magnitude that’s associated with it. That meant-to-be inexplicable bond that strings your soul to another’s when physically touched by them, forever marking you as _more_ because you’ve succeeded in finding that other person that is like you.

Later, Terence realizes that he may have been set up for unrealistic expectations. He’s shocked when he goes to school and finds out that the majority of people go through their entire lives without finding their Soulmate. He hears how his parents talk about how worthless those are who haven’t found their Soulmate.

He doesn’t want to be worthless.

He panics, and starts touching the other kids on the playground — taps on the neck, arm, face, anything he can grab hold of before they shrug his hand away. When he doesn’t feel anything different within himself, he yells and starts punching as a way to make contact, continuing until he gets dragged down to the principal’s office where he sits alone and tries not to cry.

His dad picks him up from school ( _have you taken him to see anybody?_ they ask his dad, and his dad tells them to _fuck off_ in proper Fletcher elegance), and the ride home is silent. Terence isn’t surprised when he gets the beating of a lifetime when he gets home.

His mom takes pity on him. She sits on the edge of his bed as she slowly explains the rules of how Soulmates work and patiently answers all of his questions:

A Soulmate is a match to your soul. It’s great to have someone who _truly_ knows you. Yes, not everyone meets their Soulmate. For the love of God, don’t be invasive about touch. Don’t be rude about Soulmates, not everyone likes to talk about them, it’s private. How? The knowledge of a soul-bond happens at the first initiation of touch, but only that person will know; the other person has to touch their Soulmate in return or they won’t know about the soul-bond until they do touch.

It’s an information overload. “But what if that happens?” Terence quietly asks, “when you know you’re Soulmates but they don’t? What if they never touch you back?”

“Then I guess it really isn’t meant to be,” she says.

 

 

ii.

A year later, his dad sneaks him into a bar to see Charlie Parker. _The_ Charlie Parker. Terence is inspired. He has found his true purpose.

He hides under his dad’s coat as they exit the bar. He shakes with excitement thinking about the amazing music he had heard, rhythms thrumming in his ears and infecting his very being, until they’re a block away and he’s out in the open air and throwing up his hands and shouting.

That’s when his dad tells him about the man who made Charlie Parker — Jo Jones. “Threw a goddamned cymbal at Charlie’s head,” his dad laughs. “Made him great, though. Made him _Bird_.”

Terence thinks about it. It’s one thing to be Great, but it’s another to create Greatness. He likes that sound of it, the maker of his own Charlie Parker. His masterpiece, his magnum opus.

(Unbeknownst to him, that night the beginnings of a lifelong mission establish themselves within him, writing his future path, sentencing him to a lifetime of misery, because he goes through a lot of disappointment until he gets his method rewarded. But now, it’s still innocent — the rest comes later.)

“Do you think,” Terence says, “that my Soulmate likes jazz too? Since I do?”

His dad shrugs.

“They _better_.” Terence mutters, more to himself than to his dad. “Maybe they’ll sing like Nina Simone.”

 

 

iii.

He’s nineteen and his parents are both concerned that he has yet to find his Soulmate. However, they display their concern differently.

His dad says: “It would be okay if you were a good musician, but you’re mediocre at best, so you should go ahead and give up on both,” and, “How could I have such a fuck up as a son?”

His mom says: “I’m sorry.”

What he says: fuck it.

If he were hung up on the Soulmate thing (because he isn’t, he tells himself), he would make music his Soulmate. Music is a dependable, unlike the fickleness of people. It existed before he was born, and will be around long after he’s dead. It’s a permanence in the universe, and he wants to align himself with it. He learns every component of jazz there is to know, acquaints himself with it until it becomes like a lover, and he finds that it’s something that’s always been buried in his veins.

He gets a doctorate degree because why the hell not, but he still thrives for more. He decides that the real education is experience. He wants to see it flourish, wants to be the one to construct it in his vision, even if he has to risk decapitating someone with a tossed cymbal to do it.

He becomes _Fletcher_ — an entity to cultivate and discover Greatness.

Whatever it takes.

 

 

iv.

He never knew what it was like to be in love, but he knew when he fell out of it.

She takes their kid and their house and his wasted time and that’s the end of that. They weren’t Soulmates, so they already had that going against them, but Fletcher’s bad attitude didn’t help either.

“You’re too selfish to share yourself with anybody,” are her parting words. He doesn’t argue with her, but he slams the door shut behind her all the same.

Stringing your souls together, Fletcher later thinks, and laughs. As if someone could be in possession of his soul, rein it in and make him better. At forty-two, he’s almost completely given up on the notion of Soulmates, thinking that it’s something that is perpetuated by myth — but he’s reminded of the proof of his parent’s soul-bond, and has to acknowledge that there are such dreadful things.

He frowns, thinking how stupid he had been when he was younger to think of them as his ideal, and that he didn’t notice his mom’s forced smile every time his dad reminded her of their bond.

Even if you’re made for someone, it doesn’t mean it’s perfect. He knows the suffering of two people, and he has enough of his own distress without being paired with someone who would add to that.

Maybe he is too much of a miserable evil bastard to have a counterpart to his soul. It’s plausible that there is nobody else on his level — he is a paragon, alone. He’s okay with that; he would accept nothing less.

He feels as though he’s spent most of his life so far searching for other people. He hasn’t yet found his Soulmate or his Charlie Parker.

He doesn’t need his Soulmate, but he does need his Charlie Parker (otherwise, what was all of it worth?).

So, he forgets about the former.

 

 

v.

That is, until he encounters Andrew Neiman.

Fletcher doesn’t think much about the kid at first other than he might be another lackluster wanna-be that will be fun to mess with until he quits (because they all do, eventually). He carefully prods around Neiman, leaning in and questioning to gain leverage, but Neiman thinks it’s because he’s actually interested (Neiman smiles, believes he is there for a reason, another idealist, sickening). He tells Neiman about Jo Jones throwing a cymbal to spark a legacy into being, and Neiman says that he understands what he means, but who knows — he’ll either make it or fail, and Fletcher will be done with him, like so many others who weren’t worth his time.

“Have fun,” Fletcher says, casually clapping Neiman on the shoulder, his intention to let Neiman ruminate on his purpose and build up that confidence so Fletcher will have more to tear down.

(Later, he wishes he’d been more attentive with his touch, savored the moment _before_.)

It hits him like a train wreck, all of his senses bottoming out at once — when his fleeting touch falls from Neiman he’s left gasping as he tries to rein back his thoughts, but they’re muddled together and blend with that he’s not familiar with, and it’s a futile task like picking apart grans of sand.

He staggers a few steps before he turns and looks over his shoulder — Neiman looks up to meet his gaze and Fletcher knows what _this_ is, he looks at Neiman and he _feels_ him, his feelings whisking around and impression of thoughts echoing, and what a fucking joke this is.

There’s a prickling at his consciousness, and he realizes that the crawling sensation is Neiman is inspecting him, matched by the dumbfounded curiosity on the young drummer’s face.

Fletcher stares him down, before breaking the contact and storming into the practice room. He hopes that not being in Neiman’s presence would lessen the feeling, but it’s still there, just as strong. As the band files into the room, he steadies his hands on the music stand and rolls his shoulders back and tries to focus on himself, recalling all he had read about Soulmate theory, back when he had cared.

It continues when Neiman sits at the kit — worse, even. He feels how Neiman’s heart pounds and nerves are on edge with anxiety, but warm confidence flows as if to say _I’ve got this_. It makes Fletcher want to destroy that feeling.

But what gets to Fletcher most is how he’s aware that Neiman’s entire attention is on him. Because of this, he knows that Neiman will dodge the chair he throws at him.

“I don’t know,” Neiman says to Fletcher’s questions, and Fletcher thinks, _that’s right you don’t know_. He’s angry enough already — Neiman’s sorry excuse for a tempo had been all over the place — and the barrage of unfamiliar that just doesn’t stop evokes his rage further. Neiman is clumsy with his feelings, most have no purpose, they bounce around and never land, and Fletcher has to do something to force them out of his own mind.

Fletcher makes Neiman look at him when he slaps him in the face in a rushed rhythm. He takes pleasure in Neiman’s shocked _I can’t believe this,_ his embarrassment, and the sharp pain in his own cheek that follows the first slap. He almost reaches up and touches where it stings, realizing it’s true how some Soulmates can have shared pain.

He hits him again, driven by the pain he feels that he knows Neiman feels too, knowing that it’s Neiman whose presence buzzes in his ears. A part of him hopes that the violence might incite Neiman to hit him back, provoke him into touching him so he would form the other end of the soul-bond and he would have to bear this too — but that doesn’t happen. The thought doesn’t even cross Neiman’s mind, the desire to fight doesn’t even flare in his chest. He just sits pathetically and cries. Which is just as well — Fletcher doesn’t even know what to do this hopeless excuse for a Soulmate anyway.

Maybe there can be mistakes. Or maybe it’s payback for having such a damned soul.

He leaves Neiman, turning away from the dejection emanating from him. Fletcher stores away those sad little feelings for further examination later. He thinks that he could get addicted to them.

 

 

vi.

His Soulmate is not a jazz singer — he doubts that Neiman could even croon. He thinks of Neiman singing “Feeling Good” with a squeaky post-pubescent voice, and he pours himself another glass of whiskey to suppress the lightness that burns in his chest at the image.

Fletcher tries to forget about Andrew Neiman, he really does. He’s lived this long without his Soulmate, and some twink drummer is an awful answer to his missing part.

But he cannot stop thinking of him. _Neiman_ , he thinks, saying his name over and over in his mind, alternating the pronunciations _Nee-man_ and _Ney-man_ and the occasional _Andrew_ until they become a blur. It would be a lot easier to ignore Neiman if he weren’t itching at his subconscious. He’s in his dreams, fleeting ones where Neiman is there and close and it feels right, and when Fletcher wakes there’s an ache that he knows is caused by the distance between them that hurts in some unreachable place inside that Fletcher won’t yet name.

There’s one thing that he can’t deny — Neiman is determined. He practices with purpose, doesn’t stop when his muscles scream for him to stop. Fletcher knows when Neiman’s practicing, he feels the symbiotic pain of Andrew’s sore arms and hands that hurt so bad Fletcher has a shred of worry. But he never says anything; he just takes some ibuprofen, flexes his hands and rubs his wrists and waits for Neiman to proceed — seeing just how far he will go.

(Sometimes, when Fletcher runs his fingers together he swears he can feel the sticky slickness of blood.)

Despite that, he doesn’t ease up on Neiman. Makes him _prove_ himself worthy of being in his band. _Come on_ , Fletcher thinks as he presses his grip into Neiman’s neck, _surprise me,_ and Fletcher knows that potential is there, he feels it blazing in his gut. But Neiman doesn’t know how to harness it, and Fletcher won’t lead him to it, he won’t.

But he isn’t against forcing it out of him.

There comes a point that Fletcher realizes that Neiman isn’t as scared of him anymore. He isn’t sure if that works in his favor or not, and he isn’t sure which way he prefers it to be.

 

 

vii.

Sean obviously wasn’t his Soulmate and he wasn’t his Charlie Parker either (both _wasn’t_ , past tense), but it still hurts a lot when he dies. He thinks of all that wasted potential, what a shame.

He looks over to Neiman, something he finds himself doing a lot lately, and he feels how Neiman sees him. He allows himself to peek into the part of Andrew within himself that he’s been trying to ignore and he sees that he understands, _sympathizes_ , what it’s like to have a flame snuffed out before it could reach its full height.

A striking thought comes to Fletcher’s mind — what if Andrew died?

The thought losing him is suffocating, almost chokes him, and he immediately pushes it out of his mind.

He hates that Andrew has that much control over him. He wonders if you can sever a soul-bond. He’s never heard of such, but he tries anyway, berating Andrew until he’s sure that he will hate him. Andrew meets his every demand, drumming faster and faster, until Fletcher’s heartbeat speeds to match Andrew’s that’s struggling to keep up with his body, and his hands hurt so bad he’s surprised that Andrew is able to finally fall into a double-time swing.

Fletcher’s successful in his goal to make Andrew hate him — he doesn’t have to be in sync with his feelings to know how horrid Andrew finds him. Fletcher’s glad, because Andrew has experienced the foulness of his heart, and it verifies his belief that their soul-bond is the worst of all possible mistakes. How could it work when vileness is the basis of their relationship?

He senses a shift within Andrew. A darkness surrounds Andrew like a cloud, a heaviness sitting on his shoulders pressing him down down down, but he trudges though. Fletcher has got to commend him for that perseverance. Intrigued, Fletcher tries to pry more feelings out of Andrew, scoop them out, find something stuck to his ribcage. But there isn’t much else there other than a deadened hopelessness, and that ever present live-to-die determination.

Maybe if Andrew keeps going this way, they would be more of a match. How funny it is, Fletcher thinks, to wish for the suffering and deconstruction of his Soulmate.

 

 

viii.

The soul-bond is complete, now.

Andrew finally knows now, and he finds out about it with a vicious touch, and Fletcher waits as Andrew parses though the influx of sensations that he knows he’s getting flooded with. When Andrew opens his eyes and his breathing slows from a gasping stagger, Fletcher looks up at him expectantly, as if to say _Well?_ and of course Andrew has to be dramatic about it. He hits him and Fletcher feels the intention of every strike — for screwing over his performance, unfair, doesn’t deserve this, why me, I’m not like him, no, unfair unfair unfair.

Fletcher almost reaches forward to calm him, brush a hand through that messy hair matted with blood, and say, _I understand_ , but Andrew is ripped away from him before he can do so. Which is probably for the best — the want to soothe passes and his hands itch to make him feel more of those visceral emotions that Andrew feels so strongly, so beautifully.

He doesn’t see Andrew afterward. The broken ribs that Andrew gave him hurt, but the absent ache of Andrew bothers him more. He's grown used to having him around.

Andrew’s presence manifests — he continues to frequent Fletcher’s dreams, where he’s near and he gets a glimpse of what Andrew is like when he isn’t trying to impress, and Fletcher beckons him closer. During those times, when there’s an almost intimacy, the nagging tug at his chest goes away, but then he wakes and the hollow pain returns as the remnants of the dream fade.

He knows Andrew has stopped drumming. The constant brutal communal pain in his hands that he felt from Andrew for the past few months is gone, and his back and wrists don’t flare up in aches anymore. Relief from that is a blessing of sorts, but it’s replaced with a whole new kind of pain from Andrew — despondent, empty, dead. He’s heavy with it, weighted down, and Fletcher feels it bury him. That special kind of hurt where you are purposeless, and you keep on living, but not really. Andrew has given up.

Maybe he was wrong about Andrew Neiman.

 

 

ix.

He sees Andrew again, and that pain of separation that sits heavy around his sternum subsides a little, but he’s reminded _why_ it hurts in the first place. He allows himself one moment of irate bitterness before retracting it, because Andrew can’t know, not yet.

It’s so easy to entice Andrew — he hasn’t had as much practice ignoring the bond as Fletcher has. Fletcher makes a plan, one that comes almost too easy for him. It makes him wonder how long he’s thought of it, stored in the back of his mind.

Cruel, maybe; necessary, yes.

 

 

x.

Fletcher is surprised that Andrew surprises him, but as he thinks about it, he supposes he knew all along that it was possible. They are Soulmates, after all.

He should have realized that his Soulmate and his Charlie Parker would be exclusive, one and the same.

Still sweaty and breathing hard from his solo, Andrew presses his body into Fletcher’s and grabs at his hips, and he looks at him so yearningly that Fletcher can’t help but kiss him.

The height difference is new, Fletcher having to slightly tilt his head up to meet his lips. It’s...an indulgence. Andrew meets him halfway, his mouth parted and turning his head as he desperately kisses him, moaning softly when they touch. Fletcher feels how Andrew completely and entirely submits to him, like a clean page, ready to compose.

“I’m your Charlie Parker,” Andrew says, and he’s breathless and on edge, as if waiting for an order.

“Sure,” Fletcher mumbles, dipping down and taking in more of him.

Now that he has him he’ll never let him go.

 

 

xi.

Now that Fletcher has him, he doesn’t really know what to do with him.

The aspects of their relationship develop quickly — before long Andrew’s drum kit is set up in the corner of his living room, there’s shampoo in the shower, and Andrew is next to him when he wakes up every morning.

They’re not the model of the typical Soulmate relationship, but that wholesome prototype will never be possible for them. The genesis of their partnership is so vile it can never be pure — rooted as something awful and attentively cultivated with blood and manipulation and co-dependent suffering. They hate each other too much to ever have the scales tip to the side absolute partiality. There will always be that undercurrent of loathsome hostility, always there in the coding of what they mean to each other.

So they don’t even try. They fight and argue, each other’s anger infecting the other, riling them up until they stop because what’s the point, it always ends the same. Fletcher and Andrew are both wretched souls — the only difference is that Fletcher already knows, and Andrew is slowly learning.

There really is someone for everyone, even those who probably don’t deserve it. Andrew brings it up, once, that maybe they’re Soulmates because they both hate themselves so much, so being in a pair allows them to reflect some of their hate on another. Fletcher doesn’t expect the sudden introspective moment from Andrew, so he curses at him and shoves him aside, but he thinks about it, he thinks about it a lot. Maybe he Andrew has something to it. Maybe it is something about two imperfect people trying the best they can with what they have.

He rejects the age-old notion of _you always hurt the ones you love,_ because quite frankly, that’s ridiculous (and if he loves Andrew, he never ever tells him). But maybe he likes to make Andrew hurt because then in a way, he’s hurting himself — but he comes to the conclusion that idea is fucking stupid, too.

They compensate their disdain for each other by having a lot of sex. Andrew is ornery and insatiable, and Fletcher was sure that someone as young as him wouldn’t want someone who’s more than twice his age as a companion. However, Fletcher often wakes up with an erection — something that hasn’t happened in ages — and he knows it’s because Andrew has one too, and Andrew is more than willing when Fletcher stirs him awake by pressing into his back and rutting against his thigh.

The shared components that come with soul-bonds are pretty great, Fletcher decides, as Andrew mouths a trail down Fletcher’s stomach before slipping a hand into his briefs. Their hot magnetism is useful for more than just fighting.

But he hates it the side-effect: that Andrew has somehow found his way to him. He guesses that’s how it goes when you’re Soulmates, no matter how off-putting you are. But he knows Andrew is a tortured soul, alone and lonely, and he recognizes it as something he sees in himself, and he can’t quite let him go.

Another day, “What’d you think?” Andrew asks when Fletcher catches him practicing improvisation, and Andrew smiles that stupid smile, the one that is way too eager for approval and validation, the smile that Fletcher both can’t get enough of and has a hard time looking at.

“Fucking awful, a seagull with tap shoes let loose on the kit could make better sounds that that.” Fletcher crosses his arms and for a moment, just one, Andrew’s face falls and from him Fletcher feels a pang deep in his chest and slightly sick to his stomach. But Andrew recovers and gives him that _look_ and points a stick in his direction and says, “Nice try.”

Lying is next to impossible to Soulmates, so Fletcher concedes defeat and shrugs. “Fine. Not awful,” he says, then adding, “if you can polish it up you should add it to the show next week.”

Praise goes a long way with Andrew and at Fletcher’s words, he blushes and rubs at the back of his neck and Fletcher almost expects the next words out of his mouth to be, “Aww shucks.” Instead he straightens his posture and spits out a, “fuck you,” before starting to drum again.

“Cocksucker,” Fletcher mutters as he walks away, but he steals a quick and furtive glance and sees Andrew grin. It’s airy in his chest, and burns a little.

 

 

xii.

How Jim Neiman finds out about their soul-bond: accidentally.

Fletcher blames Andrew, of course; Andrew suggests that they spend some time with his dad so he can get used to the fact that Fletcher is going to be around — even though they had planned to tell him about their soul-bond later (or never at all, as Fletcher wanted, wanted to keep it something between them). But he supposes that they have grown far too familiar with each other, and somewhere among casual conversation and talks of Andrew’s professional future, Jim reads between the lines and in a surprising amount of forwardness asks, “Are you sleeping with my son?”

Fletcher is rendered speechless, and Andrew shrilly says, _“Dad!”_

They don’t exactly deny it, and Jim heaves a heavy sigh, clearly defeated. “I don’t understand why you two are so close,” Jim says. “It’s not like you’re Soulmates or anything.”

How they react says it all — Jim looks between a furiously blushing Andrew and Fletcher who can’t look at him in the eyes, before he pales and mutters, “Oh God, no, _no._ ” He covers his face, leans back into the chair, talks under his breath, realizing the true worst nightmare for his son.

Andrew starts into a prepared speech and looks over to Fletcher as if to say, _jump in anytime?_ but Fletcher isn’t going to be a part of this conversation, hell no.

So Fletcher makes himself scarce, and leaves Andrew alone with his dad. As he walks around the block multiple times, he thinks about Andrew and the mess they’ve made, and if it’s worth it. He wonders if his utter devotion to his craft is worth the suffering he’s had to endure. He wonders if the future suffering he will endure is worth it.

He knows what Andrew would say (yes, yes, and yes). Somehow Andrew finds some optimism that hasn’t been squashed out yet. Fletcher would borrow it, but he lets Andrew keep it, just a little, just enough to know the lack of a plentiful amount.

Jim is gone when Fletcher comes back an hour later, and Andrew looks up from the couch with tired eyes and a downcast expression. Fletcher feels how strained Andrew is, taut like a bowstring, vibrating with a stormy energy where anything could make him snap. Fletcher feels this in Andrew and something in himself compels him to try to fix it, so he gives in to that impulse. He sits next to Andrew and puts his arm around him and pulls him close.

Andrew leans in on instinct.

“He says I should leave you,” Andrew mumbles against his chest. For a passing moment Fletcher tenses at the thought, his Soulmate and Charlie Parker gone in one swoop — but then he realizes that would never happen. _Could_ never happen.

“Would you?” Fletcher asks anyway.

Andrew shifts so he can look up at him, and says, “You should know by now.” He says it as a definitive, and there’s a little bit of scorn behind it, almost as if he’s offended that Fletcher would question such as thing.

Reassured, Fletcher eases into him. Yes, Andrew could never leave — he’s too dependent, wouldn’t know what to do otherwise. The voice in the back of Fletcher’s mind tells him _you’ve made it that way._

“He doesn’t know what it’s like to have a Soulmate,” Fletcher says. “And we have a better reason to be Soulmates than us just liking each other. Which we don't,” he adds at the end. Fletcher hears the tiny noise Andrew makes in agreement, glad that Fletcher had provided a resolution.

 

 

xiii.

Fletcher jerks awake from a dream that is not his own.

Andrew has a very active mind and dreams often, and his mind is especially unguarded while sleeping and lying next to Fletcher. Unwilling or not, Fletcher easily slips into Andrew’s dreams, and sees them as Andrew experiences them.

Fletcher is a common feature in Andrew’s dreams. He supposes he should be flattered that he’s so prominent in Andrew’s thoughts.

Most times the dreams are about simple things they did during the day set to a soundtrack of jazz, or weird shit like him yelling at Andrew while he tries to drum with carrot sticks. There are intimate dreams too, where Andrew will wake up flustered and press against Fletcher and whine ever so keenly, and even though Fletcher puts on that he’s bothered by his instigation, Fletcher will grab him by the shoulders and flip him on his back and start working him until Andrew begs for more.

But Andrew does have a very active mind, and harbors dark things deep inside his subconscious, thoughts he doesn’t display in his waking time. These dreams — ones like Fletcher just tore awake from — are overwhelming, the feelings that he perceives from Andrew suffocate him. It’s almost as if it’s on purpose the intensity that he experiences them.

Fletcher plays a starring role in these dreams too, but it’s horrid, and Andrew’s fear infects him as well, rooting deep and making him sick. The Fletcher of Andrew’s nightmares is heartless and vicious and aims to destroy Andrew, beating him until he bleeds, past bleeding, taking advantage of him, until Andrew is broken and hardly breathing, and then Fletcher reaches down to wrap his hands around his neck and chokes the remaining life out of him.

Heart still pounding, Fletcher rubs his eyes, pressing the heels of his hands until bright spots appear in his vision like tiny little spotlights, and tries to shake the image of Andrew’s dream away. Not real, he tells himself. It’s just something that Andrew’s idiotic mind conjured up.

As his hands fall to his sides, he turns his head to see that Andrew is thrashing and whimpering next to him, still trapped in the nightmare. A part of Fletcher wants to wait and see if Andrew can fight his way out of it, but fear that is not his own stabs in his chest and he’s driven to take hold of Andrew's shoulder and roughly shake him, yelling, “Andrew, wake up!” in his ear.

Andrew’s eyes slide open, damp lashes batting as he takes in a shuddering inhale. He reaches up and puts his hand over Fletcher’s, clutching at it as he focuses on his surroundings and comes back to reality.

Fletcher does not miss how Andrew flinches when he sees him.

Slowly, Andrew calms, and Fletcher moves his hand so it’s against his neck, fingers resting on the scar there — a scar from a car accident different than the one Fletcher felt along with him (how easy it was for Andrew to damage but still survive, Fletcher thinks). Andrew’s pulse still races, and flutters against his fingertips like a small, caged bird.

“I’m sorry.” Andrew’s apology is quiet. “I know you won’t hurt me.”

If Fletcher senses that it’s a lie, he doesn’t say anything of it.

 

 

xiv.

It’s a dream, Fletcher knows it is — it’s a familiar one he’s had many times before, one about abuses long gone, why can’t he ever forget that shit — but it doesn’t stop him from shouting out when he jolts awake from it, and it doesn’t stop him from reaching out to find something steady.

When he reaches out Andrew is there, awake and silently staring at him as he evens his breathing. The light is dim but he can make out the troubled expression Andrew wears — biting his bottom lip and he has those sad eyes — and Fletcher knows that Andrew had been caught up in his dream, too.

Fletcher retracts his touch from him, and there’s the sense of Andrew shifting with him. Like always — Fletcher acts, Andrew follows.

 _Goddamned soul-bond_ , Fletcher thinks, because no matter how much he puts up defenses, Andrew still invades his dreams, too. A soul-bond goes both ways. The thought of someone seeing, not just any someone, _Andrew_ seeing that which he keeps hidden makes him hate him all the more.

Andrew knows better than to ask about what he saw (but Fletcher still feels Andrew’s prying curiosity beneath his asphyxiating worry), but instead he buries himself into Fletcher, scooting closer and resting his head on his chest.

Fletcher would shake him off, but there’s no purpose to it. They’re too far into this, now.

“Terence,” Andrew says, and him saying his name is like a curse. Andrew calls him that without Fletcher ever telling him too. Fletcher never lets him know that it’s nice and it feels right, but he figures Andrew knows because he keeps doing it, saving it for times like these — times when Andrew has the best chance on capitalizing on his small susceptibilities. He's learning well, Fletcher thinks.

Fletcher has seen Andrew’s soul and admittedly, it is a mirror to his own. He is Andrew’s guide on how to make it reach its full potential, a path that Andrew readily abides by. Fletcher supposes that’s all the disclosure needed to warn Andrew (because if he wanted to leave before, he could have, Fletcher tells himself).

But he knows that Andrew has seen his soul too, and knows it well, studied how to find his way and plant himself inside and never leave.

Fletcher doesn’t know why Andrew worries; he would never let his Charlie Parker go, Soulmate or not.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't say it explicitly, but in this AU I see sexual orientation is not as stigmatized? Because if anybody could be cosmically paired with someone of any gender, then I think the discrimination would never happen because it could literally happen to anybody, and because Soulmates are Law, it would seen as something that just is. So for that reason, I used they/them when characters reference their unknown Soulmate.
> 
> I took the part about Fletcher and his dad seeing Charlie Parker from the screenplay; I found it so interesting that he actually saw him.
> 
> Content notes: descriptions of violence, emotional manipulation, references to possible past parental abuse, very vague reference to imagined non-con, night terrors.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and feedback is always appreciated!


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